How to Get Proficient in New Technologies

Breakthrough innovations are changing IT at ever faster speeds. New tools, languages, libraries, virtualisation technologies, workflows appear and get adopted in shorter times. A perfect example of this is Docker.

Keeping pace in that kind of environment affords a structured methodology. Here is what I do when preparing for a new thing, keeping in mind that no matter how cool it is, I will probably be far away from using it at my current paid projects.

Read a lot on sites such as InfoQ, where practitioners report.

Go to general DevOps conferences such as QCon, Velocity or watch in Youtube.

Key people will start to emerge from what you read and hear. Follow their publications and talks.

Pick a topic that matches your preferences and that will keep you focused over the next months and hopefully years.

Try it out, start with a small startup scenario, prototype it. Ask for help.